Do they walk among us? How can you tell a space alien from the average computer programmer?

Put away the tinfoil hats, and get serious. The government hid this stuff before.

The Air Force once admitted that a "disc" crashed near Roswell, N.M., then backed off and came up with a story about a weather balloon. They denied they had spacemen's bodies. (But you can Google up "proof" that they did.) New Mexico's own Gov. Bill Richardson talked about a Roswell cover-up at a presidential debate this year. (Proof on YouTube.com.) Another ex-candidate, straight-shooting Dennis Kucinich, admits he saw a New Mexico UFO that sent signals to his mind. (More YouTube.)

These guys were running for president. Would they make something up?

And why not trust the eyes of the hard-working people around Stephenville? A bunch of them saw the same things in the sky this month: slow-moving, direction-changing, glowing spheroids flying in formation.

Witnesses also saw military jets come in for a peek, but the Air Force first denied they were in the area. But here's that familiar pattern: Officials now say a whole squadron of F-16s was in the air. Why the shifting story? What did the jets see up there?

Here's the official line: "Operational procedures that can't be released." Swell. People see hovering flying things, and that's all we get? You could get better information from Dick Cheney.

Experience tells us you can't hide the truth forever; it was years before we heard that Roswell spaceship debris was carted off to the Air Force's mysterious Area 51 in Nevada.

Meantime, we swear by Orson Welles that there's no reason to panic here in Texas. If aliens meant us harm, we'd be earthling burgers by now.